Category Archives: Generic characteristics

Good King? Mad Daughters

Character types, King Lear, Tragedy, Tragic hero

I put the question mark in the title because it’s very questionable that King Lear was a good king. I certainly would not brand him a wicked character, though he did make a major miscalculation in punishing Cordelia. This is especially true considering that she was the only one of his daughters who did not want him completely out of the way. This calls into judgment if King Lear was a good king meaning a king who is good at his job, opposed to a king who is morally good or not. If we’re discussing wickedness in this play, Goneril, Regan, and Edmund would definitely take precedence over Lear.

And there is no doubt that King Lear’s starting to lose it a bit in his old age. His already volatile sanity is further provoked by the wickedness of two of his daughters. But it might help to question the sanity of both Goneril and Regan. One would have to at least be a little bit mad to treat your aging father who has already given his land to you as terribly as both of them do. Their borderline and sociopathic behavior in plotting, planning, lying to others, lying to each other, and murderous actions do not seem sane in a play that is very vocal about questioning insanity. Cordelia, however, contrasts from her two sisters by being the most honest and self-aware character. She instead suffers from the mistake of not knowing when it is a good time to speak against her father, even if it is mistaken to mean something else by him. That mistake, as noble and honest as it is, proves to be the first instance known to the reader where Lear‘s sanity is called into question. It ends up being a slippery slope of madness that cannot be stopped before major tragic repercussions.

More Learning, More Problems

Death and dying, Hamlet, Psychological states, Tragedy, Tragic hero

As a very educated man, Hamlet serves to be a good example for some of the virtues of intelligence. Unfortunately for him, these virtues also end up playing a role in his downfall. His passive and pensive attentions to detail are as much parts of his character as his reluctance to act on his true will are. I have no doubts it is particularly easy for us to empathize with Hamlet for having suffered from his scholarly pursuits, especially during the end of the semester. I would imagine this also calls into question whether or not it is these traits that made Hamlet a scholar or his being a scholar that brought these traits in him, but that is an argument for another piece of writing.

What makes Hamlet such a memorable character are the endless facets of him we can find ourselves empathizing with. Everyone at one time or another has probably caught himself or herself pondering a decision that needs to be made, and finding every distraction and diversion to keep away from making that decision. And that is perfectly understandable considering that some actions are more final than others. In Hamlet’s case, not many more decisions are more final than to murder someone. What lies in Hamlet is a truly frightening existential question. This question gives light to his famous “To be, or not to be…” line that feels applicable to so many of Hamlet’s questions: to act, or not to act, and to kill, or not to kill seem to be high on that list. I believe the interpretation of that line that is most accepted is probably the very morbid one of being or not being alive. Perhaps a contemplation of suicide might be one of the harder reasons to empathize with Hamlet, but it does represent the fatalistic attitude Hamlet has for much of his play.

The Wit-less Woods

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romantic comedy, The role of the imagination

There is a loss of logic and knowledge within the woods of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Shakespeare draws a certain parallel relationship between the loving relationships that form in the forest and the stupidity that comes with it. Bottom emphasizes this notion when he says, “…if I had wit enough to get out of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn” to which Titania replies, “Out of this wood do not desire to go” (3.1.150-153). However, there is wisdom in this kind of blind love and by making a mockery of it, the author alludes to the notion that maybe when it comes to matters of the heart, there is no atypical wisdom behind it.

Guided by a magical realm, the lovers’ tangled emotional web is immune to religion, political ties, race, age, or even species discrimination. When love is left with no restrictive boundaries, is falling in love simpler? The answer to this is complicated, as are most Shakespearean themes. However, it seems that with no definitive limitations to the heart, humans are unable to grasp a logical explanation as to why they feel this way. The boundaries of the heart exist for a psychological satisfaction, it would seem. That without them, a person loses all wit and orientation, looking for a way out of their mental wilderness. The lovers are only able to guide themselves to their city homes by defining their relationships with socially acceptable definitions. Anything they could not describe, they left in the woods.

Forgiveness is a long time coming

Character types, Death and dying, The role of the imagination, The Winter's Tale, Tragic hero, Tragicomedy

I want subscribe to the idea that Hermione’s return is somewhat supernatural. I really do like the concept of awakening from stone and returning to the world as if exiting a state of limbo. However, it seems to me that Hermione is no wife of Pygmalion, and where his statue comes into breath at his unfettered desire we are supposed to believe her breath comes at Leontes’ true remorse. I simply cannot buy it.

To quickly reiterate the evidence of Hermione’s cloistered existence, she is found to be dead by Paulina, potentially cared for by Paulina (see her daily entrances and exits from Hermione’s possible residence), Leontes is forbidden to wed again, despite being a very eligible widower, solely at the discretion of Paulina, and Hermione is ultimately “awoken” by the ministrations of Paulina and otherworldly music. The entire event screams of a long con. But to whose benefit really? The boy remains lost, Hermione has lost 16 years with her daughter, and for what? To satisfy the whims sexually frustrated, jealous, and suddenly maniacal king? I think I would require much longer than the given 16 years to recover from that slight, if I ever did. So then, is it simply a question of “enough is enough?” As a man who condemned two children to death, one of which is intentional and thwarted, the other, pure negligence and successful, Leontes is a most deplorable figure.

Are we moved by his tears of remorse? Certainly, are they enough to warrant the seclusion of 16 years and the company of all but a single woman? No, probably not. What becomes of The Winter’s Tale if it is stripped of its restorative ending? Perhaps without such a moving, emotional scene the importance of the cyclical seasons is undermined, or we as an audience simply could not tolerate it. Or perhaps it expresses the existence of the redeemed penitent, and Leontes, having borne the weight of his unfortunate actions all these years can be granted the return of joy. But if one considers the lonely 16 years, the loss of Autolycus to a passing bear, Mamillius, and even the loss of a beneficial political alliance, it would seem that 16 years may not even begin to compare to the crimes committed.

A Letter to Leontes

Character types, Psychological states, The Winter's Tale, Tragic hero, Tragicomedy

Dear Leontes,

You may think you are not one of the beloved characters to the audience of The Winter’s Tale. You may think every one in the audience of The Winter’s Tale has a negative attitude towards your character. You treat Hermione out of jealousy; you treat Polixenes unfriendly; you are to blame for the death of Mamillius, your young son whom you love as much as every father on this earth loves his child; you are also to blame for the death of dearest Hermione; and finally, under your command newborn Perdita is left on the seacoast of  Bohemia.

All these events take a toll in your life. You have suffered for 16 years. These 16 years, you have mourned over your virtuous queen’s death. Yes, you are wrong to think of her having a romantic relation with Polixenes. Georges Duby would support your suspicions, though. In his A Courtly Model, Duby explains that courtly love is secret and not seen in marriage life since medieval marriages were not based on love. Nonetheless, you have proved that maybe you didn’t wed Hermione out of love, but you have showed the audience that the magical thing that has kept you in mourning all those years is nothing but love, your passionate love.

You are very cruel to newborn Perdita, who you think isn’t your legitimate daughter. So, you order her to be abandoned, because you don’t want to be called Father by a bastard. Your decision to abandon Perdita is very common for a royal family in the medieval age where bloodline determines the heirs to thrones.

Human beings are not angels. Like angels, we don’t live in a divine realm where mistakes presumably don’t exist. We live in a human world where making mistakes is obvious. We make mistakes because our knowledge is limited. Therefore, making mistakes from not knowing should be justified.

In the beginning of the play, you are the King Leontes, Father Leontes, Friend Leontes and Husband  Leontes. But only one mistake, one unknowing mistake destroys the whole chain of relationship. You suspect Hermione and Polixenes, which makes you angry, which leads to a break in life-long friendships, which causes a motion to throw Hermione into the prison, which leads to the separation of Mamillius from his mother and to his death, which forces you to abandon Perdita. You cause the disruption 16 years ago in Sicilia with a mistake.

Now, after 16 years here you are again, King Leontes, facilitating the reunification of all broken relationships. In Sicilia, Perdita finds her father, Polixenes meets his old true friend, and fair Hermione is restored to life with a magic touch.

It all starts from Sicilia, at the court of Leontes, it all ends now in Siciclia, at the court of Leontes. This 16-years-later Leontes has learned from the time, from his mistakes.

 

Duke or Douche?

Class and status, Measure for Measure, Tragicomedy

Measure for Measure begins with the Duke announcing he must take leave and put Angelo  in charge of his dukedom, Vienna. The Duke then tells the audience he doesn’t plan on traveling outside of the city for business. He tells the audience that he wants to see Angelo handle the power of being a Duke and how he runs the dukedom in his absence.  The Duke Vincentio takes on the robe of a friar to overlook his city while remaining anonymous.

My biggest problem with the Duke is he appointed Angelo to power and yet, he set Angelo up to fail. I think that is grossly irresponsible and he isn’t being considerate of his comrade Angelo. I would say Angelo is loyal to the Duke and any individual who is granted power without any supervision is susceptible to misusing said power. The whole story of Measure for Measure could be avoided if the Duke doesn’t decide to do this social experiment. The Duke specifically says that he fears his city is starting to become fearless of his authority and he needs to put Angelo in charge to get them to start respecting authority again. At the end of the play however, he doesn’t hesitate in trying to kill off Angelo. I never really liked Angelo as a character; in fact I despised him in a way. However loyalty is something that should always be held up, especially considering Angelo is the Duke’s man. I felt like the Duke should have taken more responsibility for Angelo’s appointment. The Duke ends up being even more powerful with the city in shambles after Angelo’s reign and people supporting him even more. The Duke was this plotting character throughout the story. The one constant thing about Measure for Measure is that no character was really a hero and everyone was really full of it. I stick by the Duke being a Douche.

 

Group 6 Reflection

Death and dying, King Lear, Stage techniques, The Fool, The role of the imagination, Tragedy

Some of the most important events to happen in Shakespeare’s play King Lear happen off-stage. This is especially important since most of what our group talked about was what happened off-stage. The scene is set with Edgar confronting his bastard brother Edmund. All of the family conflicts within the Gloucester family are pumping and ready to explode as the two meet. Edmund doesn’t really know that it is Edgar whom he is fighting but soon Edgar explains who he is and the way in which his father Earl of Gloucester died.  At this point the audience knows the major event to happen off-stage and that’s the Earl of Gloucester’s dying after meeting Edgar. Goneril and Reagan die off-stage during the confrontation between the two brothers. Edmund reveals that he has set in motion a series of events to kill Cordelia.

The off-stage significance is important because so many things are happening off-stage and never before in any of the Shakespeare plays that we have read as a class has this happened. The only equivalent in terms of death is probably Hamlet, but in Hamlet  multiple characters die on-stage. The amount of characters that died are similar, but Hamlet had the chaos of everyone dying right there  for the audience to make sense of. I think his reasoning for taking the deaths of the characters of King Lear off-stage was to highlight the moment at which Lear holds Cordelia in his arms and is powerless because he couldn’t reach her in time to save her life. Maybe Shakespeare wanted to highlight how vulnerable his characters were, that they had no control over what was going on. In that sense I think Lear is even more tragic than Hamlet.

While discussing the part, our group missed some of the significance that the scene set up. Only with close reading and re-examination did we discover that there was so much going on in this scene off-stage and on-stage. During our presentation, I think our highlight of the things that happened off-stage was so important to the mood of the play. Coming into the group, I didn’t realize how much of an impact this scene had on the play. The Gloucester family is so important to the play as the other story to follow beside Lear’s story.

After working with the group our favorite part, was the acting scene. Even though we didn’t rehearse it much, the acting came alive, and everyone was just having fun with it. It became more than a group project, and that was meaningful. We all made fun of Albany’s whining and how he was an honorable man but never acted upon it. I played Albany so it was especially fun to overact the scene and portray Albany as this wimpy guy. I think it was especially fun for us to just be able to act out our parts without any pressure and let our natural ability take over. The fight between Edgar and Edmund played by Douglas and Elina respectively was funny even though that wasn’t the direction the play took it. I think our performance was a lot lighter and comical compared to the actual portrayal. Overall I think each of our group members enjoyed it and we would be happy to do something similar as a group.

 

A Beautiful Dramedy

Generic characteristics, Psychological states, Stage techniques, The role of the imagination, The Winter's Tale, Tragicomedy

The Winter’s Tale is a play that requires major suspension of disbelief. It is at several moments more unrealistic than A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a play that contains fairies and pixies, and the king’s madness is more irrational than that of even Lear. Though thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining the story itself is a preposterous flight of fancy. The king is petulant and sullen without just cause, and his moods flicker at the flick of a switch. The queen’s resurrection is a fantastical, and a pleasant surprise in an ending that seems made for “happily ever after” end credits. Even Antigonus’ death, which is both grotesque and abrupt, becomes humorous and lighthearted in this story line.

However, in my mind the humor and fantasy are marred by the death of Mamillius.  This is my one point of contention and the only scene that ties the play to tragedy of any kind. But Shakespeare masterfully fills in the gaps left by the characters taken away by death; Hermione is reborn, Florizel, who is similar in age to Mamillius, comes to the kingdom as Leontes’ son by marriage, and Paulina regains a husband of proven virtue and honor.  All of the loose ends are tied, no one is left suffering or in pain, and it is sweet, but too good to be true.  Overall, The Winters Tale is a funny lighthearted tale that handles dark, loaded topics with just the right measure of sugar to coat over the uncomfortable patches.

Preparing to 'awake' and love the husband who wanted her dead and almost made her completely childless
Preparing to ‘awake’ and love the husband who wanted her dead and almost made her completely childless

Autolycus: The Wolf [Him]self

Character types, Class and status, Costumes and props, The Winter's Tale, Tragicomedy,

There is a great deal of talk talk about bears, lions, and other beasts such as wolves in The Winter’s Tale, but by the second half of the play, we realize that the only wolf we are going to meet is Autolycus. This is not to say that this rogue is simply an antagonist, though. He is a highly complex character who falls somewhere in between the realms of good and bad: the realm of mankind.

To start, it is important to mention that the name Autolycus means “The Wolf itself” and has an extensive background in Greek mythology. In short, the mythological Autolycus was the son of Hermes and the grandfather of Odysseus.  He is said to have been a great thief who had the gift of never being caught.  It is interesting that this is the meaning behind his name, especially after we see him stealing fleece at sheep-shearing festival.  In addition to this, he calls people “the herd” (4.4) after he completes this task.  As we all know, wolves typically prey on sheep, and therefore, the sheep tend to fear them. This fact of nature would normally lead us to believe that Autolycus is evil and wishes to cause the people harm. Yet this is not the case. The people (or the “herd”) don’t fear Autolycus because he’s not really hurting anyone with what he’s doing. It is more likely that he deems these people “the herd” not because he wishes them harm, but because he is extremely clever and cunning and can constantly outwit and win these mindless sheep-like individuals over with his charming personality.  It should also be noted that prior to this festival, Autolycus has been stealing sheets. There is an apparent sexual connotation here that brings to mind it the issue of Leontes, who thought Hermione was sleeping with King Polixenes. This links the latter half of the play back with the first and gives us reason to believe that Autolycus is a foil of Leontes. Autolycus uses his “profession” to his advantage and sparks a comedic element in the play, while Leontes is suffering the consequences of his false accusations and represents the tragic aspect of the play.

Autolycus appears in disguise several times (as peddler at the sheep shearing festival and later as a nobleman), tricks nearly everyone he comes in contact with by picking their pockets, and also captivates them through bawdy songs which are often about marriage, love, and sex. Shakespeare has presented us with a highly seductive character, which is likely one of the reasons why audiences and the people around him in the play seem to take a liking to him so much. His behavior is anything but honorable and he often speaks and sings crudely, but his songs are still expressed in a way that is artful and appeals to the senses and interests of his audience, and his deeds are almost overshadowed by his skillful wit and honesty with the audience.  Autolycus might bring to mind Milton’s interpretation of the devil in Paradise Lost; though he is acting immorally and takes on different forms, we cannot help but also feel some sort of sympathy for and attraction toward him as a character. It helps that he really conveys the plight of the working class and shifting times on a larger level.  We can see through his description of himself (4.4, 95-102) and also his actions that sometimes he works, sometimes he steals, and sometimes he begs.  It is clear through many of the plays we have read (especially through Measure for Measure and King Lear, in my opinion) that Shakespeare was aware that life was not easy for most people living in 17th century England. It was a struggle to put food on the table each day, but Autolycus makes light of the situation through his humor, and would therefore be appealing to and appreciated by this large portion of the population.

In addition to this, when we learn that he used to work in the court, it becomes evident that he also serves as a link between the royal world and the pastoral world.  He isn’t your typical member of the bourgeoisie. Autolycus always masters every situation he’s in and he is a jack-of-all-trades.  He is not unlike Falstaff in terms of his wit and general competence; there is no doubt that he is in control and very aware of what is going on around him. I might go so far as to argue that Autolycus is what the every day workingman might dream to be.  He is admirable in that he makes the best of his situation and doesn’t seem to be suffering, though he goes about it in a less than admirable manner. Even so, his character gives a sense of hope to the working class poor in the audience in Shakespeare’s time, and even today.

Through all of this, it becomes quite difficult to characterize Autolycus as a predatory wolf. He is always honest about his intentions from the start. He never presents them as honorable, and although his intentions aren’t pure in any sense of the word, they are not really “evil” either. His crimes are what we would consider relatively petty, especially when juxtaposed with the crimes of King Leontes.  And we cannot forget that Autolycus’ actions eventually lead to reconciliation and harmony at the play’s end. It is undeniable that he is a complex character who is difficult to define explicitly, but we might all be unified in the notion that in all of its mystery and chaos, Act 3 scene 3 was setting us up for the entrance of a character of this nature. Through Autolycus, laughter and joy are brought into a play filled with tragic undertones, and beyond all of the fantastical elements we are presented with on stage, we finally meet a character that is truly human.